2017-02-22

One of the most popular and enigmatic American writers of the nineteenth century, Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) wrote almost 1,800 poems. Nevertheless, her work was essentially unknown to contemporary readers since only a handful of poems were published during her lifetime and a vast trove of her manuscripts was not discovered until after her death in 1886.

Often typecast as a recluse who rarely left her Amherst home, Dickinson was, in fact, socially active as a young woman and maintained a broad network of friends and correspondents even as she grew older and retreated into seclusion. Bringing together nearly one hundred rarely seen items, including manuscripts and letters, I’m Nobody! Who are you?—a title taken from her popular poem—is the most ambitious exhibition on Dickinson to date. It explores a side of her life that is seldom acknowledged: one filled with rich friendships and long-lasting relationships with mentors and editors.

The exhibition closely examines twenty-four poems in various draft states, with corresponding audio stops. In addition to her writings, the show also features an array of visual material, including hand-cut silhouettes, photographs and daguerreotypes, contemporary illustrations, and other items that speak to the rich intellectual and cultural environment in which Dickinson lived and worked. The exhibition is organized in conjunction with Amherst College.

The Morgan Library & Museum - I’m Nobody! Who are you? The Life and Poetry of

Julian Onderdonk and the Texan Landscape, on view at the San Antonio Museum of Art

, explores the work of legendary San Antonio painter Julian Onderdonk, from views of the Long Island landscape to sweeping impressions of the Hill Country and the iconic Texas bluebonnet.

Born in San Antonio in 1882, Onderdonk trained first with his father, Robert Jenkins Onderdonk (1851–1917), one of the city’s most important early artists. Onderdonk further studied in New York under American Impressionist William Merritt Chase, whose mantra that an artist should work outdoors and paint what he or she saw forever marked Julian’s work. After returning to Texas in 1909, Onderdonk found his life’s calling. He portrayed the distinctive surroundings of his state at different times of day, in different atmospheric conditions, and at different times of year to the delight of collectors and critics. Just as he reached the peak of his fame, his sudden death, at age 40, in 1922, cut his career short.

“Julian Onderdonk’s work still influences the way visitors revere—and artists paint—the Texas landscape,” said Dr. William Keyse Rudolph, Andrew W. Mellon Chief Curator and the Marie and Hugh Halff Curator of American Art. “It is exciting to share over two dozen works with the public, many of which are from private collections.”

The exhibition was organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. It coincides with the publication of Julian Onderdonk: A Catalogue Raisonné by Harry A. Halff and Elizabeth Halff, who spent twenty years tracking down the works.

San Antonio Museum of Art - Julian Onderdonk and the Texan Landscape -

In 1935, in an effort to curb the mass unemployment of the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Works Progress Administration (WPA), one of a number of domestic programs known collectively as the New Deal. While much of the WPA was focused on improving the nation’s infrastructure, it also provided substantial resources for the arts and artists through the Federal Art Project (FAP), which employed 3,500 artists by 1936, and was instrumental in launching the careers of Jackson Pollock, Willem De Kooning, and Stuart Davis, among many others.

The Federal Art Project (FAP) was also responsible for establishing more than 100 art centers around the United States. Included among these was the WPA Experimental Gallery in Oklahoma City, which would become the WPA Oklahoma Art Center when the government funded a new, larger space, under the direction of well-known artist Nan Sheets. When President Roosevelt dissolved the WPA in 1942 following the outbreak of World War II, the Oklahoma Art Center became an independent entity. At that time, the Federal Art Project’s Central Allocation Unit gave twenty-eight works by twenty-six artists to the city of Oklahoma City. When the Museum’s predecessor, the Oklahoma Art Center, incorporated three years later, the WPA collection provided the basis for the Museum’s new permanent collection.

The Museum’s WPA collection features a large proportion of rural American landscapes and depictions of labor, infrastructure, and industrial development. All are figurative, as was favored by the WPA, and there are significant representations of female and foreign-born (predominately Russian) artists in the Museum’s holdings. The WPA collection also contains two artists with local ties, Muscogee (Creek)/Pawnee painter and muralist Acee Blue Eagle and printmaker Elmer Capshaw.

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